PROCEEDINGS. ANNUAL MEETING, OCTOBER 21, 1870, AT THE LIBRARY OF THE SOCIETY, IN WORCESTER. Hon. STEPHEN SALISBURY, President, in the chair. The Reports of the Treasurer and the Librarian were read by those Officers respectively. Hon. EMORY WASHBURN moved that these Reports be accepted, and referred to the Committee of Publication to be printed, as was usual, at their discretion. He spoke of his interest in the Reports and expressed a hope that the subject treated of in the Report of the Council would be extended so as to exhibit the influence of Church organizations in the formation of Municipalities, giving at the same time some illustrations of that influence according to his views. Mr. FROTHINGHAM, in reply, stated that his consideration of the subject had been limited by both time and space. His Report was only supplementary to what had been written by others. He did not himself recognize the relation between Church and Town organizations referred to by Mr. Washburn. Whatever that relation might have been he believed that Prof. Parker had discussed it in a paper read by him before the Massachusetts Historical Society. Mr. Washburn said he was familiar with Prof. Parker's paper, but desired that the idea should be more fully presented and its validity tested. Hon. GEO. F. HOAR suggested that too much credit for originality in these organizations, may have been accorded to our ancestors. He inclined to think the New England towns had no special originality, save the deep religious sentiment by which they were pervaded and controlled. They were naturally suggested by existing organizations in England, substantially similar. Hon. J. H. TRUMBULL, of Connecticut, thought that the municipal system was modified in the colonies of Connecticut and New Haven by the circumstances under which those colonies were planted, and by the views of civil government held by their founders. In Massachusetts, the Charter had vested the General Court with the powers requisite for disposing of all such matters and things whereby the people, inhabitants there, might be "religiously, peaceably and civilly governed," &c. Its provisions were broad enough to cover the grants of corporate or quasicorporate powers and privileges to the several towns established under it. Connecticut was planted without a charter. Three plantations, each independent of the others, and all beyond the jurisdiction of the Massachusetts Patent, were settled in the valley of Connecticut, and a church was organized in each. In 1639, the inhabitants and residents of Windsor, Hartford and Wethersfield, by their own acts, associated themselves as a public State or Common wealth, and adopted a Constitution of civil government. By the general government thus constituted the powers and privileges of towns were formally recognized and defined. In New Haven, the frame of civil government was erected on the foundation of the church. The free planters of New Haven began their work of "settling civil government, according to God," by choosing the seven pillars' of their plantation church, and by restricting the power of transacting all the public civil affairs of this plantation, to members of the church. In 1639, they formally abrogated and surrendered to the church, all power or trust for managing public affairs in that plantation. The Magistrate and Deputies to assist in the public affairs of the plantation were chosen by the church, sitting as a general court. The Municipality was here the creation of the church, and this model was closely followed by the other plantations afterwards associated with New Haven, in a colonial gov ernment. In the earliest Records of both Connecticut and New Haven Colonies, the word town is used as synonymous with plantation; for a collection of houses or habitations, with their inhabitants-not as the designation of a municipal corporation or quasi-corporation. The inhabitants and residents of Windsor, Hartford and Wethersfield-not of the towns-formed the Connecticut Constitution of 1639, and in New Haven all municipal powers were derived, under the rules set forth in the scriptures, from the church. CHARLES DEANE, Esq., of Cambridge, thought the Society could not be made responsible for the views of the writers of the Reports. Probably the Society could not agree on the question; but it can publish the views of any member without being made responsible for them. Hon. J. D. BALDWIN seconded Mr. Washburn's motion, and referred to the matter of American Archaeology presented in Mr. Haven's report as a very important matter, and as a legitimate topic for the Society. He suggested that the exercises at the meetings might profitably consist of the reading of papers on this and other topics. Such a course would promote active interest in archaeology. Many of the theories of the French Abbé are questioned, but he has great learning, and deals with great facts that should be studied. There are commonly accepted beliefs in regard to antiquity and ancient history, which are very far from being demonstrated facts. Some of them are shown by investigation to be very absurd; and if they are not now classed with Mark Twain's discovery of the "grave of Adam," it is only because they are commonly accepted without inquiry. American Archaeology demands study. Peru, Central America, Mexico, and the mound builders, present a great field for research, which can not be soon exhausted. Hon. ISAAC DAVIS suggested that it is always in order for members to present papers on antiquarian topics. It was then voted unanimously to accept and publish the Reports. The Report of the Committee on papers relating to Indian remains and graphic symbols sent to the Society by Prof. Salisbury of Ohio, appointed at the last meeting, viz: Francis Parkman, Esq., Hon. J. Hammond Trumbull, and Samuel A. Green, M.D., was read by DR. GREEN, and recommended the publication of nearly all the descrip tive portion of the manuscripts, with such plans and sketches as are necessary for illustrating them. Mr. TRUMBULL remarked that some of the symbols of most frequent occurrence in the inscriptions copied by Dr. Salisbury, in Ohio, had been found in sculptured rocks near the borders of New Mexico. Lieut. A. W. Whipple, in his Report on the Indian Tribes, published in the second volume of the U. S. Pacific Railroad Explorations and Surveys, gave descriptions and drawings of the inscriptions discovered at Rocky Dell Creek, between the edge of the Llano Estacado and the Canadian River. A shelving sandstone rock, at one side of a gorge though which this Creek flows, was covered with " innumerable carvings of footprints, animals and symmetrical lines," and "paintings, some evidently ancient." In one portion of these carvings, figured by Lieut. Whipple, (Report, p. 38,) we find moccason tracks, single and double, and numerous 'turkey track' symbols, like those in Ohio. The Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, on seeing copies of these Rocky Dell inscriptions, recognized them, and said that "here their fathers hunted, feasted and danced, and then sitting by the water-side recorded their thoughts and deeds upon the rocks." An account, in the same Report (p. 40) of the ceremony observed by the priest of the Zuñi (Pueblo) Indians of New Mexico, for invoking rain from their tutelary divinity, Montezuma, and a representation (p. 41) of an Indian 'altar', or sacred place, in Old Zuñi, suggest a possible origin of the so-called 'turkey track' characters, which may not be undeserving of notice. The priest having selected twigs from certain trees, cuts them into pieces a few inches in length, and about the top of each of these, |